In what has become sort of a tradition for this blog during the month of July, today’s post will be a Loki artwork post.
First up, is one of my newest favorites – a digital piece subtitled
The Fire God says Hello…
(AKA Loke-Spam #2) by Striped Smoker on DeviantArt.
~~~
Another digital piece…
Loki, as Beast, by QuickReaver on DA.
I love that feral glint in His eye, the tousled mess of His hair…and of course, that jaunty tilt of His top-hat.
I am struck by something primal and dangerous in His facial expression
…and whatever that is, this image reminds me of Malcolm MacDowell from ‘A Clockwork Orange.’
~~~
Unfortunately as much as I really *lovelovelove* this image – and it is referred to all over the web as being ‘Norse Loki’ – I have absolutely no artist information/credit for this artwork.
When Googling this image, one is liable to come up with dozens of Pinterest hits and a few links back to a missing/deleted page on tumblr (media.24.tumblr), but other than that – there seems to be nothing more.
I’m sharing it in hopes that someone – anyone — has any leads for this artwork.
Please let me know – I’d love to give credit where credit is due! Thanks!
~~~
And finally, in the realm of Pop Culture Paganism…
Here is Sergey Razumovsky.
So I went searching for more of this artist through Google, and I kept finding some really interesting stuff…in Russian.
Translated, it turns out that this is fan art associated with Bubble Comics’ Major Grom/Major Thunder the Citizen comics.
This character is named Sergey Razumovsky. He is an orphan, a brilliant hacker, an Entrepreneur of social networking, a philanthropist, and a rather engaging and flirtatious fellow.
Sergey is similar to Loki in many ways, both in looks and attitude…and there are some subtle yet unmistakable similarities with the lore between Odin and Loki in a few story arcs of the comic as well. O.o
I don’t know how much of that is intentional on the part of the
original artist (who seems to be named Phobs.)
(The first image is fan art; the second is an original from the Major Thunder the Citizen story arc, by ‘Phobs‘)
Being that this is the month for Loki, you may see many devotional blogs that feature a convenient little survey (like this one) that details the particulars of the development and practice of hows and whens and whys of a devotee’s journey to working with Loki.
And in the interest of my task to keep it 100, I wanted to write a post today that talks about the first role that Loki played in my life once He re-introduced Himself to me in 2011.
Loki is, for all intents and purposes, an academic. While His relentless desire for knowledge often does mirror Odin’s singleminded quest for wisdom in several ways, in my experience, Loki’s methods seem infinitely more eclectic.
Loki doesn’t care how or by what means you’ve attained your knowledge; He just wants you to get it.
In that, Loki seems to value those with a variety of skills – and the more varied your skill-set, the better.
So, in that sense, His role in the development of my devotional practice for that first year, was as my Teacher… and I was His student.
That was pretty much the dynamic for the first year.
I was incessantly prodded to notice and examine the energy around me, and to become aware of the energy within my body. In this sense, I was being encouraged to learn that everything that exists consists of energy, and that much of how matter (and by extension, will) is manifested in this world is through movement of energy – the vibration of light (color), the vibration of sound (words) and the vibration of movement (dance, exercise, even sex.)
All matter that exists vibrates with differing frequencies.
As I never paid much attention in physics class, I despaired at all this complex talk about energy.
But then, as He is wont to do, Loki nudged me from other angles.
I began a meditation practice, that later grew to involve the use of chanting and mudras.
I began studying runes and other alphabet systems. I re-acquainted myself with studying linguistics, as well as the structure and history of Proto-Indo European languages.
I learned about drumming and dancing as a means to bring about altered states, including trance.
I learned about the ‘energetic body’ – with intense focus on chakras and auras.
I learned about shielding, grounding, warding and other magickal exercises.
And looking back on it, I realized that there are definitive links between what is defined as science/history and what is defined as spirituality/magick.
Perhaps there is little difference between the two as long as there is focused intent, and a commitment to study with intent.
~~~
And my practice grew.
My interactions with others and my experiences with Loki at that time seem to reflect my student role back at me:
I saw myself as a devotee of Loki, nothing more.
And I was satisfied with all of that and with all that I was learning — about science, about magick, about Loki…and most importantly, about myself.
I was so taken up by what I saw as a rapid and very exciting process that was focused entirely on the pursuit of knowledge.
But then, things changed.
Suddenly, I began losing focus as a student… because my marriage was falling apart.
I could not ignore the profoundly emotional energetic shift that seemed to be occurring in my life.
Despite the fact that I was connecting with so many things on both a physical and a philosophical level, the structure of my most valued relationship was failing.
Suddenly, I started to chafe against that scholarly distance that I had created as a student.
While I could muster a polite respect for Him as a Teacher, underneath the surface, I felt distracted and disconnected.
Soon I began to daydream and avoid the lessons that I had once embraced. I put away my runes. I stopped my various studies of mudras and chakras and auras. I stopped all of my daily rituals – the daily practices of grounding, centering, and warding. I gave up focusing on energy work altogether.
The only thing that really stayed was my meditation practice. It was the only mindful connection that I seemed to be able to have with Him.
And then, He began to come to me while I slept, in dreams.
I can’t believe that the month of July has arrived already!
And as you may know, many Lokeans around the country celebrate the month of July by writing; that’s 30 days of devotional posts for Loki.
And this blog here will be no exception.
~~~
2016 has been quite a year thusfar, and in this month alone, I’ve experienced a lot of upheaval and change in my devotional practices.
For one thing, towards the end of 2015, I found myself being damn near forced to abandon most if not all of the connections that I’d previously made within the Lokean community over the past several years.
As well, I was encouraged to develop a renewed focus upon several of my most personal relationships, and to be honest, I was even more stubborn about that. As a matter of fact, I will freely admit that I abhor change. As one might imagine, this meant that I fought many of those changes damned near every fucking step of the way.
You see, I was given several tasks in the first few months of 2016, and I will admit that I would just not be myself if I didn’t somehow try to weasel my way out of doing some major work towards that end.
But if Loki is anything, He is a patient God, and His tactics are often relentless, to put it mildly.
You might imagine that the last few months have not been easy.
The first task that I was given was to be self-aware and honest with myself about all the ways in which I have avoided confronting …myself.
The second task was to stop engaging in all of my various avoidance maneuvers, including but not limited to vaguebooking, privatizing entries, and downright avoiding certain relevant topics, simply for the sake of someone else’s comfort, let alone my own.
And the third task was to pull all those half-written and mostly hidden entries from my files, and either complete them/post them…. or throw them away.
So it’s a mental and perhaps spiritual decluttering, if you will.
And I am working on it.*
~~~~
So. Where do I begin?
First up, I screwed up my resolve and over the course of several months, I have been forcing myself to discuss the finer points of my devotional practice with my husband, V.
So far, things have been going well enough.
V has been nothing if not open-minded, and I am slowly coming to terms with the fact that it is not as I had feared it would be at all.
In fact, many things have gone so entirely well that I am left wondering if perhaps I am the close-minded one in our relationship.
Fancy that.
I don’t know what I am – or have ever been – so afraid of.
~~~
*The network of tasks that I have been given shall, henceforth, be referred to as ‘keeping it 100:’
It’s not just one thing, Heathir.
It is the whole of Heathir.
You are to be known. Make yourself (known)
Open. Be open.
You give (the permission to others.) Give permission (to yourself.)
I suppose that I should point out that I did do a little personal ritual last night. As described in a friend’s post, I asked Loki to come to me in whatever face that He chose.
I promised that I wouldn’t question it, and I promised that I wouldn’t dispute it, so here I am on what was delivered.
I have been told that I am with-holding. I am told that I refuse to be generous.
I find the most profound insult in being labeled selfish, in being considered self-centered.
I don’t like to be selfish, and I balk at being called self-centered, but sometimes I am.
Madness is a kind of selfishness. Madness has a certain air of self-centeredness.
Or at least, it does for me.
I went insane in 1997. I think that I may have always been, but I received a diagnosis of Bipolar Axis I – later changed to Bipolar Axis II – in 1997. The axis never mattered to me because what followed that diagnosis was an intense 3 years of self-examination in my life, broken into 50 minute hours that occurred three, sometimes four times a week.
And I hated every minute of it. Therapy felt like a terrifying exposure in front of a stranger -an educated stranger whom I was paying to stand emotionally naked in front of – a session with an inquisitor for no reason but to punish and perpetuate the theory that I needed to learn how to fit in with a world that I didn’t fit into, that I never fit into. I had to learn how to deal with others, but mostly, it felt like I was learning to sublimate myself.
It’s funny when I consider that I felt more feeling in my madness than I did in the 26 years that I had lived up to that point.
I suppose that I would have been considered mad as a child too, always being told how strange I was, how bad I was, how I had failed to be what was expected. There was definitely a disorder to my life, to my thinking – even if no one was calling it bipolar back then – that’s what I felt was reality. My struggle arose out of this desire to not be ‘disordered’, to not be separate.
To this day, I still feel separate. It is still a struggle at times to convince myself that if I am myself, if I show others who I really am, I can still be loved.
I’ve no doubt that my husband thinks that I am mad, crazy, out of my mind. But I believe that there are concessions that he’s willing to make until he gets tired of making them. But, to take a page from my madness, it is likely me who will tire of making concessions first. When we get tired of making concessions for each other, we’ve told each other, we have promised to move along. We have promised to separate.
But I am nothing if not determined. Some would call that loyal.
I know that we will separate someday. I know that I will be alone.
Because we live as we die – alone.
It is interesting to consider that concept now that I’ve written it there. Did I ever believe that? Do I believe that now?
Because, even as a child, I felt that no one should be alone in death. I used to wander around the most decrepit sections of New England cemeteries, inwardly noting dates and reading the names of those longest dead. Sometimes I would simply recite their names aloud, but mostly, I would whisper greetings to them, because it hurt me to think that they may have been forgotten. As far back as I can recall, I thought it the worst of all to be a person that had been forgotten, who had been ignored, simply because time had passed.
While it might be hardly surprising that I am estranged from my family today, I imagine that it could also be perhaps that I was a little girl that was feeling somewhat forgotten, possibly even ignored by those who claimed to love me, albeit often dysfunctionally.
I have trust issues. I have abandonment issues. And the madness that grows from the pit of my soul was screaming to be seen:
See me! Hear me! My emotions were a whirlwind, a storm that had been brewing for a long, long time. My anger was a beast in chains that was demanding for release. This is why the story of Fenrir appealed to that part of me.
There was nothing wrong with Fenrir; He is what He is. There isn’t any shame in what He represents. He is Madness. He is emotion unchecked, hunger unfulfilled, the forces of Nature out of control. He is Nature itself, the nature of all that we attempt to control.
A Facebook friend posted this video in my feed today:
And it triggered a lovely memory that I have that is related to this song.
~~~
In April 2015, I went to small weekend-long Pagan sexuality event called Body Magick.
Though I attended by myself, I quickly got the impression that this event was geared towards couples.
I was one of only three other ‘singles’ that attended that weekend.
One of these singles – an older man named Kevin – left before the end of the first day when it became clear to him that Body Magick was not a ‘kinky poly swingers’ event that he’d been assuming that it would be. (I think the event organizers were somewhat relieved that he left on his own, as his attitude that colored the ‘first impression’ that he made during the introductory circle rubbed several folks in all the wrong ways.)
The other single – a young woman – seemed guarded and cautious. Though we did converse several times — simply for the fact that we were likely the only attendees with insomnia in the campsite who weren’t actively entertaining/engaging a partner in the late hours of Friday night into the wee hours of Saturday morning – I didn’t find out that much about her. She told me how she had recently experienced a rather lengthy and contentious divorce, and she sought to attend the event simply to recover herself and get back her spiritual bearings.
And then, there was me. Alone, and perhaps a bit lonely. (My husband – a non-Pagan – had chosen to stay home that weekend, and he had some prior work commitments, as well.)
~~~
But I must say – even though everyone I came in contact with was friendly, the event rituals were well-done, and the energy flow was welcoming and pleasant – I could not shake that dull achy feeling of being at loose ends throughout my weekend at Body Magick.
~~~
So there I was, on Sunday morning, sitting in a lawn chair outside the ‘mess hall’ with a belly full of breakfast pancakes, listening to music on my iPhone.
My earbuds had somehow become damaged, so I decided to listen to my Loki playlist on low volume, as I waited for my husband to pick me up.
As he wasn’t set to arrive for over an hour, I felt like I had some time to kill, so I half-dozed/meditated in the overly-bright April sunlight, with my iPhone in my lap.
And then this song came on.
The song had played about halfway through when suddenly I was shaken out of my reverie by a friendly voice.
What is this song? I love this song.
I opened my eyes, and I looked up to see a slight, older woman standing in front of me. She was smiling.
The sun was behind her, so I was grateful for the shade she created. I returned her smile. I couldn’t help it.
It’s Walk the Moon, I replied. It’s called, Shut up and Dance.
She laughed, Would you mind playing that from the beginning?
So I clicked back, and she settled down beside my chair, to listen. Thank you so much, she whispered.
I watched as she closed her eyes, and she smiled broadly as she listened, her face upturned towards the sunlight.
Again, the song reached the half-way point, and another person – a young woman, her arms loaded with camping gear – walked past. I guess she had been on the way to loading up her car.
Hey! I know that song! she blurted out, stopping short in front of us.
She dropped her heavy gear-bags at my feet with satisfied sigh, as if relieved for the sudden excuse to take a break.
She turned toward the woman on the ground, nudging her. Don’t you just love this song? she burbled.
The older woman opened one eye: Yes, she grinned broadly, looking up. They knew each other, so the older woman stood up to greet her with a hug.
And the young woman, unburdened by her gear, warmly embraced her friend.
After a few moments, they broke from their embrace, and the young woman started to sway.
Won’t you play it again, please, the young woman turned toward me, insistently, I feel like dancing!
OOh, dancing sounds like a great idea, the older women agreed.
So I did.
And I watched as they danced, the movement of their bodies mirroring each other. I admired the ease and joy of their dance – they seemed entirely unself-conscious and comfortable in their bodies as they were taken up by the rhythms of the song.
Then, they began to sing.
They both looked at me.
Doesn’t this song just make you want to dance? they asked me, during the first instrumental bridge.
The older woman motioned towards me, welcoming me to join them.
I demurred, too shy to dance.
But I did sing along with them.
Suddenly, these two women dancing and our combined singing drew the attention of several other campers on the way to loading their cars.
Next thing you know, a loose half-circle had formed right there in front of me.
Soon enough there was a crowd of twenty or so happy people dancing, singing, enjoying this song, in a spontaneous swirl of swaying color, sound, movement…and laughter.
And I must have played that song four more times in its entirety before our impromptu dance party ended.
I was talking with a friend about an hour ago, regarding an article that someone else had posted concerning how – theoretically – if one were to consider structures in nature as ‘order’ (the natural order of things in a system) then attempts by humans to impose their own concepts or systems of ‘order’ upon natural structures by other means (by sorting, categorizing, or classifying) is therefore a form of ‘disorder,’ because such imposition is creating artificial (unnatural) systems:
I ❤ this graphic. Artificial order imposed upon systems *is* chaos because they’re useless to anybody BUT those utilizing the artificial order system.
To the greater system itself? It’s meaningless. Piles? Columns? Sorting by type? That’s all concessions to the limitations of our cognitive systems.
Sure, our cognitive systems are natural too – even the artificial/natural distinction isn’t “quite” right.
But in the greater scheme, the one where humans are optional, those piles and sorting is chaotic and meaningless.
~~~
I’d never thought of order or disorder as being defined this way, and yet, I have been thinking of the relation between the concepts of ‘order’ and ‘disorder’ a lot lately. It began, as most things do, with a simple conversation in a Rokkatru group concerning someone’s UPG of the Aesir representing ‘order’ and ‘civilization’ in the cosmos while the Rokkr represent ‘nature’ and a ‘natural sort of disorder.’ Of course, there was discussion of how nature has its own sense of ‘order’ – but how, from the point of view of ‘civilization,’ nature’s sense of order is random and therefore, considered by civilization to be ‘disorder.’ As well, others discussed the concepts of open and closed systems and how a closed system eventually falls apart because it can’t self-sustain and whatnot, and things quickly became rather meta.
And being a Rokkatru group, of course, this discussion wound its way towards discussion of Ragnarok, and the role of Loki, Fenrir, and Surtr in bringing on the end of the world. The world is a closed system and the role of the Rokkatru is to bring about the destruction of this closed system in order to make way for a new (and perhaps more open) system.
And so, it’s odd but not surprising to me that that conversation gave me a headache…because chaos theory usually does.
~~~
But then, there I was again tonight, having a conversation about order and disorder again, but this time, it was on a smaller scale.
I was talking to my friend about how Loki has laughed at me concerning my OCD need to arrange the items in a specific configuration on His altar, or my habit of overthinking that is a hallmark of my social anxiety, or my inability to let things go and/or trust the process.
I have no problem admitting that I am sort of control freak regarding several aspects of my life and practice. And my friend agreed that she has some of those issues too.
And then, she said a funny-strange but interesting thing that hit me like a ton of bricks:
She said that her life as a child was hellish and the only way that she could have control over her environment was to draw. The only world that she could control could be found at the end of a pencil. So she drew pictures and created stories. She created worlds. She told me how Loki told her that her best artwork seemed to come when she experienced personal turmoil. How He has asked her why she would draw, and she told Him it made her happy. But the truth was that she was often unhappy/angry/miserable while drawing. (And, of course, He noticed that.)
Well, that reminded me of my own artistic coping strategies.
Honestly, I suppose that it’s nothing new, but I wrote and drew my way through a miserable childhood…and adolescence…and fuck, I *still do.*
And yeah, that realization, of how I tried to make sense of confusing experiences by filling up notebooks, and drawing my imaginary friends, and how much it shocks me to think that it wasn’t just me being escapist.
That art was …that art isa rather dysfunctional coping mechanism for me.
I don’t make money with it.
It doesn’t make me happy.
Things still pile up in my head, and writing them, drawing them doesn’t serve to make me any more sane or stable.
And it sure as hell doesn’t help me or my loved ones to understand me any better than before.
It’s just another method I hide behind. (Funny -autocorrect suggests that the word ‘method’ should actually be ‘met God’ over and over. No, I’ve never met God by writing or drawing. Psht. I should be living.)
Perhaps my incessant writing and drawing are what I do to keep myself from meaningfully engaging with others.
bloodteethandflame 